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Wednesday, January 4, 2017

Repost: American Honey (January 7th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[AMERICAN HONEY screens Saturday January 7th at 8:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by Bob Ignizio

There's an interesting story to be told about a young woman
living in poverty who leaves an unhealthy home environment to seek her fortune
on the road selling magazines. Unfortunately, AMERICAN HONEY isn't it.

The film introduces us to its protagonist, Star (Sasha Lane)
as she and her siblings are dumpster diving at a grocery store. As they prepare
to head home, a van full of energetic, playful young people pulls in to the
parking lot. One of them, Jake (Shia LeBouf), immediately catches Sasha's eye.
So she and the kids follow the group into the store. When Rhianna's "We Found
Love" comes on over the store's speakers, the group breaks into an
impromptu dance party and gets thrown out. In the scuffle Jake loses his cell
phone, which Star quickly snatches up.

Back in the parking lot, Star returns the phone to Jake,
using her good deed as an icebreaker. She learns that the group are magazine
salespeople. They drive across the country and go door to door, selling their product. Jake offers Star a place
on the crew, but she turns him down.

Since home life is pretty awful – not just the poverty, but
the man of the house (possibly Star's father, it's not clear) sexually abuses
her – Star eventually reconsiders Jake's offer. After dropping her siblings off
with their mother, she meets up with the Jake and the gang at their hotel, and
embarks on a great American road trip of discovery and ethically dubious sales
work.

Writer/director Andrea Arnold's AMERICAN HONEY
strains hard for realism and authenticity. Its style at times recalls the films
of French brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne (THE CHILD, KID WITH A BIKD).
But there are far too many moments that strain credulity. Not in the exaggerated,
full-blown fantasy manner of a Schwarzenegger action film or mega budget sci-fi
flick – when a movie is serving a heaping helping of nonsense, and makes no
pretentions to anything other than that, it's easy to suspend disbelief. But AMERICAN HONEY is unbelievable in more
mundane ways, and in its depiction of relationships and actions that are
supposed to involve ordinary people in an ordinary world, it hits numerous
false notes.

Most damaging to the film is the central romance between
Star and Jake. There is no chemistry between these two, and no compelling
reason for why either of them should be attracted to the other besides the
obvious physical ones. But their relationship is treated as something more than
that, and it's not convincing for even a second.

But beyond that, even in depicting its world of poor young
people selling magazines door to door, the film never sells us on the truth of
what we're seeing. On her first time out, working with Jake as her teacher, we
see Star flat out try to sabotage him. It might be out of petty jealousy over
the customer's underage daughter, who seems to have taken a shine to Jake, or
because the customer herself is "insulting". But either way, it
doesn't ring true.

Later in the film there's a scene where Star goes off on her
own and scores a particularly big sale from some wealthy businessmen. Jake then comes riding in to her
"rescue" in over the top fashion. Really? Perhaps something like that
could happen, but it seems more like
a scene that belongs in a movie less interested in being grounded than this one
does.

Further keeping viewers at arm's length are the film's indie
affectations: the shaky, at times out of focus camerawork, the random lingering
shots of insects, the gratuitous pot smoking, the casual nudity and frank but unconvincing
sex scenes, and of course, to cap it all off, a scene involving sparklers and
fireworks. And then there's the Oscar bait length of the thing. There isn't
even close to 2 hours and 40 minutes' worth of movie here, but that doesn't
stop director Arnold from dragging it out that long.

On the more positive side, star Sasha Lane is fantastic in
her first acting role. She has that natural, unaffected quality that can only
come from a non-actor who just happens to have innate talent. The same cannot
be said of her co-star. Shia Lebouf is full-on method acting here. He's fine in
more casual scenes, but when his character's emotions move to anger or
jealousy, watch out for pieces of flying, chewed up scenery. The only other
cast member with any kind of substantial role is Riley Keough. She's fine, but
isn't really given much to do other than look sexy and be a one-dimensional
mean girl. Everyone else in the magazine crew is more a glorified extra than an
fully fleshed out character.

The film won the Prix du Jury at Cannes this year, and
critical response in general has been far more favorable than mine, so take
that how you will. I can only report on my personal experience, and for me watching
this movie was a slog. And I feel really bad saying that, as there are so few
films that focus on a female character to the degree this one does. And dammit,
Star isn't an inherently bad character. She just deserved a better movie. Given
the quality of her performance here, however, Sasha Lane will
have no shortage of other opportunities to be in better films, should she want them. 2 out of 4 stars.